kung_fu_humansfandomcom-20200213-history
Meet the Author
Hi! My name is Leslie, and I am the real author of the Kung Fu Humans series! Most of you may know me as 'Kelsi Rider'- well, that's my internet name, which I use for accounts on the internet and such. I'm here to tell you some things about the series and about myself- which is why I've decided to interview myself! Here we go: Can you tell us the story of how this series came to be? Wow, that's a long one... Okay, here we go: Well, ever since I first saw Kung Fu Panda, I’ve been a fan of the series. I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan, but a fan. After I saw the movie, I started imagining myself in the movie, and created stories in my head where I was with the cast of KFP in their world. I had been creating stories with myself in my favorite television shows, books, and movies ever since I was four, when I imagined myself in every single episode of my favorite show when I was that age, ‘Veggietales’. I didn’t know that they were called ‘Fan fictions’. After I saw the movie Kung Fu Panda, I got a pen and a notepad and wrote a short story about Po’s cousins, who were humans, coming to visit. The names of the girls were Kelsi (based off of me) Trinity (based off of my friend) Nicole (based off of my other friend, Trinity’s younger sister) and Kathy (based off of Trinity and Nicole’s older sister). In the story, the girls move into the noodle shop and meet Po. Kelsi, Trinity, and Nicole are excited to meet their older cousin for the first time, but Kathy begins to make fun of Po because he’s a panda. After Po fights off ninja pigs (ha ha ha) and saves Kathy’s life, she apologizes and warms up to him. I started writing more books about the girls, and soon it became a series. A few years later, when I was eleven, I discovered fan fiction after randomly looking for Kung Fu Panda stuff on Google. I thought, ‘What the heck is this?’ After going on it for awhile, I figured out what it was and what you could do there. I tried to make an account, but I learned that you had to be thirteen or older to make one (I was eleven at the time). I still kept imagining myself in KFP world. I went on the website a lot, and I found a story called, ‘A Mystery with Kung Fu’. It looked interesting, but it was the sequel to something, as it said in the description. So I clicked on the username, and I discovered Chrissy Mullins, my favorite fan fiction author. Her stories were unique, interesting, and not to mention cool! Her series, ‘A Day with Kung Fu Series’, inspired me to look back at my story that I had written. I changed it almost completely so that it was about my friends and I going to the world of KFP and becoming warriors called the ‘Dragon Sisters’. I typed the first chapter up on my laptop so that when I was old enough, I could copy and paste it to fan fiction. I then realized that I didn’t have a title for it. So I took ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and changed the title a little. I came up with ‘Kung Fu Humans’. After writing the story, I thought, ‘This can’t end here! I need a sequel- no, I’ll make it a series!’ And thus, KFH was born! Are the characters in your series based off of real characters? The answer to that would be yes. Kelsi Rider is based off of me, and Trinity and Nicole Bacon are based off of my two best friends in the whole entire world (I shall not name names). Lance Rider is based off of my brother. Pretty much everyone in the human world is based off of someone in real life. Some things about the characters are different from the people they are based off of in real life, but mostly they're the same. By the way, Renningville, New York, doesn't exist... Where did you get the names for your characters? I got the name ‘Kelsi’ from a girl from the High School Musical franchise named Kelsi. I loved the name, and used it whenever I could. I wanted it to be my own name. So of course I used Kelsi as my first name in KFH. As for Rider, it’s a longer story. I have always loved writing, and I wanted my last name to be something along the lines of ‘Writer’. I thought and thought, and the closest I got was ‘Rider’. Pretty close, I guess. As for Trinity and Nicole Bacon, those are the names they would rather have. Cool first names and a hilarious last name. My brother’s favorite names are Cedric and Lance. So I decided to make Cedric his middle name and Lance his first (so it would be Lance Cedric Rider). When put together, it sounds incredibly cool (doesn’t it?). Will you make any crossovers in your series? Duh! What’s a series without a few crossovers? I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m planning on writing and maybe posting crossovers with… 1) The Hunger Games 2) Rosario Vampire 3) Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch 4) Harry Potter 5) Veggietales 6) Phantom of the Opera 7) Penguins of Madagascar 8) Wicked And maybe a few more! So, look out for those! Besides Kung Fu Panda, what are your favorite movies? Let’s see… one of my favorites is ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. Another one of my all time favorites is ‘The Hunger Games’ (loved the book series too). And the entire ‘Harry Potter’ series was amazing. Oh, and let’s not forget the entire Star Wars saga (it rocked!). So, can you tell us if Po and Kelsi will end up together? No. I can’t. It will all be sort of revealed at the end of season three or four... Does this series have a theme song? Actually, yes, it does! The theme is a song I wrote called ‘Keep Breathing’. The song is about the girls wondering what their power is and what it means; if they fight together they can be the most powerful force; how this can be their destiny; and how no matter how tough the challenges get, they cannot stop breathing. I wrote a bunch of other songs for the series as well. Did you “steal” the idea for this series from fanfiction author Chrissy Mullins? (Laughs for about twenty seconds) No… and yes. You see, I have had the idea for this series ever since I saw the movie Kung Fu Panda back in 2008. It stayed in my mind, and I never wrote it down. When I discovered fanfiction.net when I was eleven, and discovered Chrissy Mullins’ story, ‘A Day with Kung Fu’, I gained a few ideas from it, and I was inspired to type the first book of the series on my laptop and copy and paste it onto fanfiction.net when I was old enough to get an account. So, thanks for the ideas, Chrissy! How is your series alike and different from Chrissy’s series? Here’s how my series is like Chrissy’s series- 1) My main characters go into the world of Kung Fu Panda 2) My main characters have a piece of jewelry that can get them home 3) My main characters have titles 4) One of my main characters (Kelsi) has a crush on Po 5) My main characters are into singing and drawing Now here’s how my series is different- 1) The first character my main characters meet is Mr. Ping 2) My story does not take place during the actual Kung Fu Panda movie 3) My characters get their power from a freaking goddess 4) The first villain my characters defeat is a goddess 5) The main character(s) in my series isn’t one person, it’s three people 6) At the beginning of my series, my characters are eleven (Nicole), thirteen (Kelsi), and thirteen (Trinity). That’s younger than Chrissy, who’s sixteen when the story begins. Why did you make the series around the time when the Dragon Sisters were in middle school? Well, I made the girls in middle school because of two reasons:1) I wrote the first story when I was eleven, and I wanted the story to take place around the time that Kelsi was thirteen, which was the age that I could get an account on fanfiction. When I was thirteen, I would be in seventh grade.2) I made the story take place when the girls were in middle school because the three years in middle school are the three years where kids start to change. They start thinking about love, some start doing bad things (like cursing, which could lead to smoking and doing drugs in high school), and in middle school, you really start thinking about what you want to do with your life. Middle school is pretty much a time of change for everyone, and I decided to make the story take place during that time of the girl’s lives because I think that the drama, slight romance, and other things that cause the girls to change, would improve the series. Can you tell us more about the story you wrote when you were younger? Well, as you know, the story was about Po’s human cousins, Kelsi, Trinity, Nicole, and Kathy, coming to live with him in the valley of peace after their parents died in a car crash. All the girls but Kathy warmed up to Po and his father immediately. Kathy made fun of Po and refused to accept Po as her cousin, which hurt Po deeply. A few days later, Kathy is attacked by ninja pigs (laughs) and Po saves her life by fighting them off. Kathy then apologizes and accepts Po as her cousin. I wrote a few more stories after that. The second story is about the girls missing their old life in America, so Mr. Ping gets them all plane tickets to America. The six of them visit the girls’ hometown, and end up going to a nightclub where they sang a lot (which is how they and their mother had made a living). Kelsi looks for someone there, a boy named Darius. When she finds them, they begin dancing, and have a great time. Kelsi explains that they were once going out, and when she finds out that Darius has a new girlfriend named Sheena, Kelsi gets incredibly upset. She goes to Po for advice, and Po assures her that she’ll find someone else. The third and last story I wrote is about Kelsi, Nicole, Trinity, and Kathy singing one day at the noodle shop, and a man from a record company hearing them. The man’s name is Kyle, and he wants to give them a chance at being the next big singing group. They accept, and go off to a recording studio in Hong Kong, where Kyle works. But what they forgot was that the day after that, Po had to go to a different city to fight a villain, and the girls never said goodbye to him, which made him think that they didn’t care about him anymore. The girls spend a few days at the recording studio, and Kyle gets them a gig at the Valley of Peace. They accept, and all go back. When they arrive at the valley, they remember that they never said goodbye to Po, and are scared that he thinks that they don’t care for him anymore, and are also worried that he may die on the trip he’s on. The night before the gig, the girls are in their room, and Kelsi finds a bookmark that says, “Never miss a chance to say ‘I love you’.” on it. She is inspired by it, and immediately writes a song describing how she feels. She makes a copy of the song lyrics and sends it in the mail to Po, and the next night, the girls sing the song at their gig. When Po gets back, the day after they sang, the girls apologize for not saying goodbye, and Po forgives them. They all hug : ). After I wrote the second book, I was planning on writing a fourth one about the girls going to the Jade Palace and training with Po, but then getting Po in trouble and admitting to Master Shifu that it was their fault. But after writing the third one, I got bored of the series and quit writing it. I lost the notebooks that I wrote the stories on, and they’re still gone to this very day. I think someone may have thrown them away (MOM). Final Words So, that's the interview! If you would like to have a question answered by me, please ask me either in the comments section on the website, or in the reviews section on fanfiction. I read all of the reviews and comments, and I will be happy to answer any questions you have for me! They will be answered here: Questions and Answers.